History, Natural History & the Arts
During the American Revolution, the Province of New York was a stronghold of Loyalism. While a difficult matter to estimate with any degree of certainty, available records would seem to indicate that the Loyalists may have constituted an actual majority of the total population.
The statement has even been made that New York furnished more men to the British forces engaged in the war than to the American. [Read more…] about Champlain Frontier Loyalists During the American Revolution
In 1774, John Peters (1740–1788) of Mooretown, Gloucester County, New York (then part of the New Hampshire Grants, now in Vermont) was a Judge of Probate of the Court of Common Pleas, colonel of the militia and recorder for the county.
Respected by his neighbors, he was chosen as a representative to the First Continental Congress. [Read more…] about John Peters: From 1st Continental Congress to Loyalist Leader
The New York Provincial Congress on May 26, 1775, appointed a “standing committee of correspondence” and the next day ordered all the counties in the Province of New York to name committees for the counties, towns and districts and to have the “general association” signed, in order to execute the orders of the Second Continental Congress.
Every citizen was to be invited to sign the “association” and by July 1775, all the non-signers (loyalist, or otherwise) were to be reported to the Provincial Congress. [Read more…] about New York’s Provincial Congress: From Association to State Government
Live Free or Die: The Life and Times Of John Stark (Page Publishing, 2025) by William Baker Jr. is the story of how one of the American Revolution’s best battlefield commanders triumphed over the self-interest of others to play a major role in securing victory for the new republic.
Most often referred to as the “Hero of the Battle of Bennington,” John Stark also played pivotal roles in the Battle of Bunker Hill and the Battle of Trenton. [Read more…] about The Life and Times of John Stark
“Over three decades, he reported from Moscow, Beijing, Tehran and elsewhere and wrote well-received books based on his reporting, including one about his globe-trotting cat,” The New York Times obituary remembering Christopher Wren recalls.
The former journalist, writer, and Vermont Historical Society Trustee passed away in February at the age of 89 at his home in Thetford, VT. [Read more…] about Christopher Wren: Veteran Journalist, Ethan Allen Biographer, Dies at 89
Payment and incentives for enlistment in the American Revolutionary War, both in the Continental Line regiments and local militia units, were a problem from the beginning.
The Continental Congress did not have a hard specie (gold or silver coinage) source to pay soldiers, instead relying on paper money. That paper money, without any source of backing, soon became worthless. A method of rewarding soldiers for service had to be found. [Read more…] about Revolutionary Veteran Land Bounties & Settling Warren County
In the latest episode of the Crossroads of a Continent podcast Tim Dusablon discusses the events in the Champlain Valley leading up to the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War including the New Hampshire Grants and loyalists Philip Skene and William Gilliland‘s grand plans for a 14th British colony.
Before the War families from southern New England and eastern New York had settled in “the Grants,” as the New Hampshire-titled lands disputed by the Province of New York but now located in Vermont were known.
They believed that the royal governments of New Hampshire and New York, representing the king, wouldn’t deny the rights of citizens who settled the land, organized governments, paid taxes, and obeyed the laws. [Read more…] about William Gilliland, Philip Skene & the NH Grants at the Eve of Revolution
Born on April 21, 1751 in present-day Litchfield County, Connecticut, Ira Allen was a land speculator, revolutionary, pamphleteer, politician, colonizer, and a key figure in the history of Northern New England. He was one of the founders of the state of Vermont and a leader of the Green Mountain Boys. He was the younger brother of Ethan Allen.
In 1771, Allen went to Vermont (then part of the British colonial Province of New York) with his brother Ethan as a surveyor for the Onion River Land Company, which the four Allen brothers established in 1772 (it was dissolved 1785). Their goal was to purchase lands under the New Hampshire Grants and they served a central role in the dispute with the New York over conflicting land claims in the region. [Read more…] about Ira Allen: A New Biography
Simon Fraser (1776-1862), the Canadian explorer of British Columbia, had his roots in Hoosick, New York. He was born during the early years of the American Revolution in the small village of Mapletown in East Hoosick, Rensselaer County, NY, near Bennington, Vermont. [Read more…] about Hoosick, NY’s Simon Fraser: Explorer of British Columbia
After the fall of the forts at Ticonderoga and Crown Point during the French and Indian War in the fall of 1759, General Jeffrey Amherst ordered the building of the Crown Point Road.
The road was to run across what is now Vermont between Crown Point and The Fort at No. 4 on the Connecticut River in what is now Charlestown, New Hampshire. [Read more…] about Crown Point Road: Opening Northern New England & Lake Champlain
July 7th marks the anniversary of the 1777 Battle of Hubbardton, in Vermont. The battle was one of the only engagements in what’s now the state of Vermont during the American Revolutionary War, although the capture of Fort Ticonderoga in 1775 and the Battle of Valcour Island in 1776 did spill over into Vermont as well.
Like the Battle of Bennington, it holds a particularly outsized role in the conflict itself owing to it having taken place in the lead-up to the Battles of Saratoga. [Read more…] about July 7, 1777: The Battle of Hubbardton in Vermont
If you walk into the Vermont Historical Society’s museum in Montpelier, you’ll a flag hanging from the wall behind the admission desk: the blue and green Green Mountain Boys flag.
It’s a flag that’s been wrapped up with a hefty dose of legend and mythology. [Read more…] about The Green Mountain Boys & The Evolution of Vermont’s State Flag
On March 4th, the State of Vermont celebrated its 232nd birthday. March 4th, 1791 is the formal start of what we now know of as Vermont: the 14th state in the union, with a continuity that has withstood the last two centuries. But the idea of Vermont had its own torturous birth in 1777, the result of land grants from the colonies of New Hampshire and New York, and those settlers making those lands their own. [Read more…] about The Anniversary of the State of Vermont
Between 1749 and 1764 colonial governor of the Province of New Hampshire Benning Wenworth made about 135 land grants (now known as the New Hampshire Grants), including 131 towns, on land claimed by New Hampshire west of the Connecticut River. This area was also claimed by the colonial Province of New York.
From the 1760s until 1779 the Green Mountain Boys, led by Ethan Allen and his brother Ira, controlled the area. Based at a tavern in Bennington, they evaded arrest warrants from New York State and harassed settlers from New York, surveyors, and other officials, often with severe beatings and destruction of their belongings. [Read more…] about Albany Posse! The Capture of Remember Baker, Captain of the Green Mountain Boys
Since 2016 the Green Mountain Boys Project have been researching the celebrated military unit, which lived and served along what was then the New York and New Hampshire border (in modern day Vermont) from the 1760s until 1779.
The Green Mountain Boys, led by Ethan Allen and his brother Ira, controlled the area of disputed land grants. Based at a tavern in Bennington, they evaded arrest warrants from New York State and harassed settlers from New York, surveyors, and other officials, often with severe beatings and destruction of their belongings. [Read more…] about Green Mountain Boys in the American Revolution
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